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Russian Democratic Federative Republic (Joan of What?)
Russia (Russian: Росси́я, tr. Rossiya; from the Greek: Ρωσία – Rus'), also officially known as the Russian Democratic Federative Republic (Russian: Российская Демократическая Федеративная Республика, tr. Rossiyskaya Demokraticheskaya Federativnaya Respublika), is a country in Eurasia. At 22,800,000 km2 (8,803,129 sq mi), the Russian Democratic Federative Republic is the largest country in the world by surface area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, and the fourth most populous, with over 325 million people at the end of June 2017. The European western part of the country is much more populated and urbanised than the eastern; about 77% of the population live in European Russia. Russia's largest city is Moscow, which is one of the largest cities in the world. Other major urban centres include its capital, Saint Petersburg, as well as Kiev, Tashkent, Baku, Minsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, the Russian Democratic Federative Republic spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, China and Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and Alaska across the Bering Strait. The nation's history began with that of the East Slavs, who emerged as a recognisable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states; most of the Rus' lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion and became tributaries of the nomadic Golden Horde in the 13th century. The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities, achieved independence from the Golden Horde, and came to dominate the cultural and political legacy of Kievan Rus'. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland in the west to Alaska in the east. Following the Russian Revolution, the modern Russian state came into being. Russia played a decisive role in the Allied victory in World War III, and emerged as a recognised superpower. The twentieth century saw some of the most significant technological achievements in Russian history, including the world's first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, Russia had the world's second largest economy, largest standing military in the world and the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. In the 1990s, due to severe economic decline the Russian Democratic Federative Republic almost collapsed. It was only thanks to rising oil prices and the climate changes, which have made the permafrost being absence and revealed immense stores of energy resources and precious minerals, as well as potential farmland. It has made the Russian Democratic Federative Republic the world's foremost industrial and economic superpower. Russia have some of the largest and most heavily industrialized areas in the world. The Russian economy ranks as the third largest by nominal GDP and second largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it the world's leading producer of oil and natural gas globally. The country is one of the five recognised nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Russia is one of the world's two recognized superpowers. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, as well as a member of the G8, G20, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), as well as being a leading member of the European Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).